Browse categories:

Hide popular topics:

/r/technology is a place to share and discuss the latest developments, happenings and curiosities in the world of technology; a broad spectrum of conversation as to the innovations, aspirations, applications and machinations that define our age and shape our future.

Rules:

1. Submissions

Guidelines:

Submissions must be primarily news and developments relating to technology

Submissions relating to business and politics must be sufficiently within the context of technology in that they either view the events from a technological standpoint or analyse the repercussions in the technological world.

Please do not submit the following:

i) Submissions violating the guidelines.

ii) Images, audio or videos: Articles with supporting image and video content are allowed; if the text is only there to explain the media, then it is not suitable. A good rule of thumb is to look at the URL; if it's a video hosting site, or mentions video in the URL, it's not suitable.

iii) Requests for tech support, questions or help: submit to /r/techsupport, /r/AskTechnology, another relevant community or our weekly Support Saturday threads.

iv) Petitions, Surveys or Crowdfunding - submissions of this nature will be removed.

vii) Mobile versions of sites, url shorteners: please directly submit the desktop version of a webpage in all cases.

2. Behaviour

Remember the human You are advised to abide by reddiquette; it will be enforced when user behavior is no longer deemed to be suitable for a technology forum. Remember; personal attacks, abusive language, trolling or bigotry in any form are therefore not allowed and will be removed.

3. Titles

Submissions must use either the articles title, or a suitable quote, either of which must:

Removed threads will either be given a removal reason flair or comment response; please message the moderators if this did not occur.

All legitimate, answerable modmail inquiries or suggestions will be answered to the best of our abilities within a reasonable period of time.

Rule violators will be warned. Repeat offenders will be temporarily banned from one to seven days. An unheeded final warning will result in a permanent ban. This may be reversed upon evidence of suitable behavior.

Most people don't understand, there are quite a few people out there that hate the idea of charity and helping the downtrodden on a deeply emotional level. It's at the core of their identity that they have "got theirs, no one else should be helped getting their own". More over, the idea of any level of equality on a large scale is offensive, the very nature of success is striving to be, or actually being on, a small peak reserved for the few of the "best", or "elite".

I've always been a bit curious about these kinds of people and how they became this way. In large parts I've noticed that it's very much about self validation. The idea that they have "earned" their place among whoever or whatever they see as the top is a sacred notion to them, even if it isn't empirically so.

It often doesn't matter how the inclusion of people outside that "elite" group happens ether, it's always an offensive notion, and they will often stop and almost nothing to prevent it.

it reminds me of an andy kaufman-esque gag or publicity stunt. there's no way this can be serious. I mean, the guy trademarked his own name and he even points out websites don't have mothers. i call bullshit

Another thing in common they have is that people love putting them in the spotlight. This scum is feeding of all the publicity and flexing his ego. We should just ignore this idiot until his frivolous lawsuits are thrown out of court.

This guy is the single biggest douchey cunt I've seen or heard from in a LONG time. God damn would I love to see Trey Parker and Matt Stone do an episode about this giant douche.

He's suing a guy who made a satirical Twitter account in this? And how the hell is he going to find all the people who added him to porn sites or delivered pizzas? This guy is a joke and needs to be disbarred.

This guy has already buried himself in a hole and he's still working at digging it deeper with every sentence.

I love how he has/had a satirical website and is suing someone for being satirical to him. The massive amounts of hypocrisy are just crazy. It can't be too long before he appears in south park. Then every other satirical show out there.

They've also done the "Don't Sue People Panda" and "Oh we're gonna sue you. We'll sue you in England!"

I just feel like he deserves to be very obviously targeted by Matt and Trey. He'd no doubt attempt to sue them and the whole thing would just be such a real life representation of the jokes I'm assuming.

He looks Jewish, perhaps he's the type of Israeli that hates the Palestinians?

He seems like a douchebag who sued using his own name so he could fish for actionable causes against him, like the fake twitter account. I wouldn't be surprised if he was bringing Israel into it since many people, redditors especially, view Israeli apartheid unfavorably. The chances of that generating some "anti-semitic comments" which of course has a very low bar to meet, could be used to fuel his little legal war.

Crazy how he did that. Obviously the charities would catch wind of his potentially large donation so they would be getting ready. When said donation doesn't come, it would come out into the world quickly. His thought process makes no sense.

I graduated from law school a month ago. I'm a science guy by background and inclination, so law school was more of a lark to satisfy my curiosity than anything else. Not knowing any lawyers or pre-law types, I expected it to be filled with arrogant know-nothing douchebags who wanted to fight over every little thing.

I was very pleasantly surprised. The overwhelming majority of my classmates, the faculty, and staff were incredibly nice, thoughtful and caring people. There were certainly plenty of pugnacious alpha male douchebags, but really no more than would be present at any college or business or whatever.

From what I saw from all the lawyers I met (adjunct teachers, school functions, etc), they were also intelligent, professional, respectful (and respectable) people.

Now it could just be that I wasn't at a low-tier private school, I was at a "flagship" state school with a strong history of the touchy-feely-social-justice type work, but I definitely got the impression that much of the pop culture view of lawyers was undeserved.

It probably is. Like cops, reddit probably has a HUGE confirmation bias when it comes to lawyers. You sometimes hear of them doing good things (working some high-profile pro-bono case) but most of the time it is for doing bad things, like this.

FunnyJunk did pay him for the original letter and to get Inman's comic about FunnyJunk taken down. Once that happened and the Internet jumped all over him, he decided to file the lawsuit against Inman, the Oatmeal, the charities, the tweeter, etc. on his own.

Doesn't that invalidate part of his case? If part his case is the "slander" from Inman about bestiality, then isn't he pointing out that no one could take Inman serious because at least some of the statements are impossible? Thus the tone is satirical, not factual, and protected as free speech.

He doesn't even seem like a competent lawyer. And it seems like he is still playing fast and stupid with money he sent the wrong amount to register as the DMCA agent... And previously he was suspended for not handling client money properly, which is a big deal for lawyers (and their credibility).

Holy cow! It looks like a giant bowl of oatmeal is stepping all over the city of Funnyjunksville! No worries, this is none too big a task for Captain Douchebag!!

"Lawsuit laser, go!" PEWPEWPEWPEW

The beast staggers at the power of the laser, but the lawsuits do nothing but enrage the bowl of oatmeal even further! Even worse, some civilians are hit in the process! Twitter, the NWS, and the ACS have all been struck by one of Captain Douchebag's mighty lawsuits, and are now turning against him!

"I have not deceived anyone. I am not able to stand armies. It is entirely distinct. The grounds for engaging in savage satire of people who are murderers [is a] completely different situation. That’s like comparing touch football with warfare.”

Holy crap. This is the worst cop out for saying, "What I do is better than what you did!"

You can't have it both ways, Mr. Carreon. You want to shut down The Oatmeal? Shut down your site first. Free speech is free speech. No caveats, no asterisks, no buts.

His points in this case don't make sense; maybe they do in some arcane legalistic way, but I don't get it.

This whole drama is bizarre to me because I was part of the Carreons' big epic Buddhist drama back in the early 2000s and I thought Charles was pretty intelligent then; I often agreed with him and his wife Tara.

The controversy it caused spurned something like a flame war that lasted over two years (sometimes it wasn't so heated, many people agreed with them). As I said I agreed with them on many points, but some of the traditionalist Western converts to Tibetan Buddhism (and eventually other sects of Buddhism as the discussion broadened) demonized them in a way that was fanatical.

I used the phrase "something like a flame war" for a purpose. Buddhist forum flame wars are still for the most part tremendously more civil than other types. But yes, there are flame wars. This one got pretty bad at times. The Carreons were very demonized by some, for sure.

Tara Carreon took the lead in these heated discussions I am talking about that sometimes became flaming expressions of hostility (on both sides) and Charles was there more in the background.

Just my opinion, but I think Tara had a deeper emotional connection to their Buddhist community than Charles did and when they had their break with the community she had a more emotional style of reacting. I think she was expressing frustrations that had developed over two decades. She could be quite fiery at times and wouldn't let up.

These discussions were almost exclusively on the forum on the Tricycle Buddhist Magazine. The forum from that time eventually became overwhelmed and is deleted; I don't know if it's still archived somewhere.

There have also been many other "flame wars" on Buddhist forums. It'd probably be better PR to call them "passionate discussions of our differences".

One of the Ars articles has a quote from someone who knows him saying basically, "I tried to talk him out of this... I don't know what happened. Usually he's very reasonable." I think the thing with the bear broke his brain.

Both his "I have not deceived anyone." and "I am not able to stand armies." have the implied (or maybe even the stated, I can´t access the article right now to get the entire context) "But Inman has/can"

In many cases, yes, that can be true. But when life or money is at stake, what people look for in doctors and lawyers is competence, not celebrity. Secondly, he doesn't have celebrity, he has infamy; I doubt if he'll be able to monetize it. Thirdly, for every frivolous suit a lawyer launches on his own behalf, he risks peer ridicule, diminishing referrals, judicial censure, law society sanctions / supervision, and even disbarment. Witness the "$67 million pants" former judge who sued his dry cleaner over some temporarily misplaced pants. Because of the ensuing legal circus he created, he was not reappointed to the bench, he was fined over ten thousand dollars, and had the Chungs not been able to fundraise enough, he would very likely have been on the hook for nearly $100K for their legal fees as well. We can only hope things work out equally well for this person.

He last tried to sue Facebook over users posting stuff about him in 2009. But it was dismissed because Facebook and other Internet Providers are not responsible for the content their users post on their web sites due to the Common Decency Act.

Remember that, as this other lawsuit might end the same way. One of the web sites was user submitted stuff was submitted to one web site and copyrighted on another, another part was tweeting with a Twitter account stuff about the other guy, and another was at forums and places like Ars. Basically these web sites cannot be held liable for what their users submit under the CDA.

Jack Thompson eventually had to give up, who knows what he does now. Could be a homeless guy in a suit with the sign that says "Need money to sue Video Game Makers and Social Networking Sites to get back my dignity."

I just checked his Wikipedia page to see if there was any update on what Jack has been up to. While I couldn't find that (honestly assuming he was decent with his money as a lawyer he might just be sitting pretty, sadly) I did find this fun gem:

On September 19, 2009, Thompson announced that he intended to resume practicing law as of October 1, 2009, claiming that he was "never disbarred" because all of the orders resulting in his disbarment were legal nullities.[148] He dared The Florida Bar to get a court order to stop him.[148]

That's where the section on his disbarment ends. For some reason that's hillarious to me.

That would have worked if he wasn't a lawyer. Trying to get public sympathy for being blatantly trolled by a webcomic artist and generally acting like a baby is not going to work. Nobody's going to side with a lawyer over an artist.

You know, that whole "any publicity is good publicity" saying is something I have always really believed in, but when the Internet hates you as though you're the next Rick Santorum, I really just don't believe the saying applies anymore. At all.

Well, the saying "any publicity is good publicity" only applies to entities that have both supporters and detractors. Bad publicity can be made good because it reminds supporters that you still exist, thereby keeping your name in their minds, e.g. Winona Ryder shoplifting. This guy, he doesn't have any fan base to energise. He's just holding up a big sign that says "harass the big mouth D-bag".

Saying there is no such thing as bad publicity is essentially saying that McDonald's bottom line wouldn't suffer if they put out an advertising campaign featuring Ronald McDonald in full SS regalia saying 'McDonalds hamburgers are made from jews and other high quality cattle'.

Inman's idea to add two more charities is another act that shows the risk of money being raised for one purpose to be diverted to another. For example, I raise money for an Israeli charity to pay for trips to the Holy Land, but then decide that half the money should go to Palestinian orphans...

O_O

How. How has he not learned that opening his mouth is making things exponentially worse.

My personal favorite was from the article a day or three ago where he loosely insinuated that Walt Disney could be attributed to the atomic weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or I'm a giant moron and misunderstood the statement).

I hate to say it but that lawyer wasn't completely off. Disney did a lot of propaganda.

Plus let's not forget that these days Disney is one of the major contributors to fucked up copyright laws, e.g. the various Mickey Mouse Protection Acts that regularly extend copyright durations whenever one of Disney's characters would enter the pubilc domain.

Well, I can see his point in this case. Lets say there's two charities, Charity A and Charity B. I fully support Charity A but can't quite get behind Charity B because of one reason or another. If I expected all my money that I was donating to go to Charity A but instead it went to Charity B, I might be upset.

Actually it's not that ambiguous, as he says that he will take a photo of the raised money. When he then says the money in the last point, it's pretty clear that he is referring to the last money he talked about (which is the raised money, not 20 000$of the raised money).

If I donate $100 to be split evenly between two charities, it seems reasonable to expect that $50 dollars will go to each. If, however, two more charities are added (and who knows if they're groups that I even want to support) now I'm giving $25 to each.
I mean fuck- why even tell people who you're fundraising for if you'll just be changing the recipients after the fact? Might as well just tell people they're donating to ________ and tell 'em to cross their fingers in the hopes that the money goes to organizations that they support.

While I don't agree with Carreon on any other point, I do agree with regards to the charity point.

While people donated, as goodreverend points out, as a "fuck you" to FunnyJunk and their tactics, they probably wouldn't have donated as much or at all if the money was going to fund a terrorist organisation or even something else that they didn't agree with.

Now I'm absolutely not saying that the other two charities Inman is likely to choose are likely to be anything but benevolent, but the point is it should either not be changed, or people should have the option to choose whether their donation goes towards the new charities as well, or only the ones they had agreed on.

For example, if one of the new charities Inman selects happens to be involved in Islamic Missionary action while helping people, many Christians may refuse to donate. Similarly if the charity chosen is something like the Salvation Army, many members of the LGBT society may refuse to donate.

I'm sorry, but I just love this guy. He has provided me with near daily entertainment for over a week now. It's just gets better and better. He admitted that he shouldn't have demanded the $20,000 in the first place? And he still isn't giving up on the rest of this? This guy is pure gold. With all the stuff in that article about FunnyJunk and the DMCA, I wouldn't be surprised if he calls so much attention to the site and it's practices that he gets it shut down.

I really do love this guy. He's like a snowball rolling down a mountain.

He doesn't understand the internet. He doesn't get how it works, or that it works in a completely different way than the real world. Using the legal system is like snitching in an elementary school, all the kids start to hate you, and the teacher just looks at you like 'Are you fucking kidding me? I don't want to deal with this bull shit'

But Carreon argues that, because Inman responded to the fake @charles_carreon account on Twitter, he's liable for incitement. “Inman took advantage of the false tweet for his own purposes and very promptly, which raises the connection to something well above the level of coincidence, into the realm of allegeable fact,” he told Ars

I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me he is alleging guilt of harassment incitement by mere communication with the person who actually incited it, which my non-lawyer senses tell me is a load of bullshit that won't hold up for a minute in court.

I don't get it. The lawyer is saying that insulting him and protesting against him is a crime. In the Westboro Baptist Church case, Snyder vs Phelps, the courts ruled that the WBC could insult/protest Matthew Snyder because he was considered a public figure. Would this lawyer not be considered a public figure after the initial incident of sending the email to The Oatmeal? Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder_v._Phelps#Issues

I've got a friend who passed the bar exam and then spent a year in India fighting child sex trafficking. So there was at least one person in the legal system who wasn't a troll, but now he's an agent in the FBI.

Someone that knows more about law than I do said that he had to donate in order to legally have a stake. This way he can say it's HIS money that is being misused. Honestly, he MIGHT be able to push on the "you added more charities!" thing... even though it'd make him a jackass. Usually when you collect money for one thing, you can't later add on other things to the list. Even so, this guy is going to look like a giant moron for trying to push the point when we're dealing with money for charity.

Also, why add more charities. Those two sound like very good charities and could both use 100k. Not to mention if I were him I would want the lawyers of those two charities on my side to make sure they get that money.

I think the point is that initially, he only wanted 10k per charity. Now he has the ability to help more while still giving all 4 more than 5 times more than he had hoped to raise for the original 2 charities. The two charities are still getting far more than he ever imagined he could give them, but in the process, 2 other deserving charities can also benefit from the immense kindness that is a lot of people on the internet.

I agree, but I'm not sure how it works in court. I do know that I can't fundraiser for one thing and spend the money on something else, but you could argue that he's made enough money since announcing the change of intent that none of the original money will go to the new charities. Whether that'd hold up, I dunno.

I don't know how it will work either. I think the argument will be that he only specified where the 20 thousand was going to go, he never specified where any excess money would go. I hope that a judge just throws the case out altogether. The guy is obviously not in a right state of mind. Who wants to have $200,000 in charitable donations taken away because someone mocked you for starting a bullshit lawsuit. It should be very interesting to see where this goes.

It's not illegal, but there are certain standards of conduct for many professional organizations, and lawyers most certainly fall into that category.

The rules vary by location and are definitely complicated, but basically if a lawyer makes a big enough ass of themselves with legal nonsense, there are all sorts of sanctions that can be put upon them in regards to their legal career.

“I win by making the world a place where the law of charitable giving, wisely enacted over fifty years ago by the California legislature, will secure the rights of genuine charitable fundraisers to not have to compete with false advertising and unregistered charitable fundraisers who can take the money and vamoose, as so many have done,” he said.

How does a law in California make the world responsible for adhering to that law?

None of the money should go to Inman, says Carreon, because "he is not a registered commercial fundraiser" but also because "the Bear Love campaign utilized false and deceptive statements and insinuations of bestiality on the part of Plaintiff and his client’s 'mother.'"

So did Inman depict Carreon's mother of FJ's admin's mother in the image? Let's assume that Inman meant to literally depict SOMEONE'S mother.

I'm really trying to make sense of what Carreon is doing and saying, but I can't do it.

I especially liked the part where he compared hosting a pornographic photo-shopped image of a person he didn't like with religious groups handing out pamphlets. As a collector of religious pamphlets that get handed to me or left places, I KNOW they are pretty insane and messed up at times, but they aren't pornographic, and the people handing them out actually believe that people's souls are at risk (and they actually think that matters). One of the more ridiculous pamphlets I have I found in a donated bible for military people, and on the front is says, "Solder! Are you prepared to die?" That was something special, and why does Carreon think his trash-talking is protected?

Edit: I really am trying to understand him. I thought for awhile that he actually believed Inman wanted to incite an "internet jihad" against him, but now I don't think so. I think he's just being a sensationalist. If he actually believed this, I would feel sorry for him and I would hope that he could get help for his mental issues. I know people don't all view the world the same (I have some issues making sense of reality myself) so if in his reality he is being viciously attacked, then okay, we can deal with that. He still doesn't need to sue charity organizations, but we can work with that! Get some professional help for him. But no. I think he's just being a jerk.

It's all fun and games when it's someone else's ideas, name, and trademarks on the line.

But as soon as someone flips the tables? That's when shit gets real.

I don't think he's being a jerk, I think he's just a dumbass. There's a lot of people out there like him, can dish it out until he's the brunt of the joke. Once that happens, he just gets pissy about it.

My girlfriend has a "friend" that's part of their little girl group who's the exact same way -- she joins in on the fun when they're making fun of each other, but as soon as they make the exact same jokes about her, party's over and everyone gets kicked out.

I see! I didn't realize the image had to be directed at him for him to sue Inman. It makes sense now that he keeps trying to say it was his mother.

He really needs to think and get his facts straight before he speaks. There was an update in one of the linked articles where Carreon wrote in after he actually READ what indiegogo's terms were regarding 9% vs. 4% of the money raised.

Any thoughts on the CA law subject? Is he saying CA=the World? Or is he just speaking too much again and trying to generalize to reach more people?

Carreon makes perfect sense. You're looking at it wrong. So is most of Reddit. Don't take everything at face value and Carreon is no dummy.

First, there's no such thing as bad PR. Carreon got minor press over the sex.com thing. However, he'd love to have a bigger name for himself and a higher billable rate.

If anything, Carreon is relishing this attention. His profile is much, much bigger. Further, quite a few companies have been attacked by the Internet. Make a good showing here and he will be sought after by large corporations who want to fight back. They have deep pockets. Carreon will get fat retainers and pop up as a pundit all over TV.

Hate to say it, but you guys are playing right into his hands.

Second, the Oatmeal completely mishandled this. What he should have done was have a lawyer reply with a threatening letter and a takedown notice. Carreon would have backed off, the cartoons would have disappeared from FunnyJunk and that would have been that.

But, no, the Internet had to turn this into something much bigger.

Congratulations, you people just created a monster. Carreon is not going to go away. He will end up on the news shows and rake in millions from big corporations who want a high-profile lawyer who fights back against this stuff.

Oh yeah, and Carreon is going to win the moral high ground with the general public. And get stinking rich.

I'm expecting massive downvotes here. But this is what's going to happen. And a lesson in why you shouldn't bring virtual mob justice to everyone you dislike. It can make someone like Carreon much more powerful.

Further, quite a few companies have been attacked by the Internet. Make a good showing here and he will be sought after by large corporations who want to fight back.

Except that it doesn't seem likely that any corporation bothered about its brand image will touch this guy with a 10 feet pole. Mob justice is not ideal of course, but angering the mob further is no way to deal with it.

Every time something like this happens, people like you show up to tell us how we're all so stupid and that the ultra smart and savvy business class are playing us like suckers, and they're going to win in the end.

Guess what? Not every attention-seeking douchebag is an evil genius. Some people just really don't know when enough is enough. I'd refer you to the OceanMarkettingOceanStratagy OceanDeepSea fiasco, or the Jack Thompson affair.